Sunday, December 30, 2007

We Are The World

Just got back from ten days on the East Coast and I have an air travel observation that ties into our stock picking ideas.

Going through airport security they ask you to put personal items from your pockets and place them in those grey bins. They also now ask everyone to remove their shoes and those too go into the grey bins.

Annoying, but harmless?

The men's restrooms at airports share many things in common. One of the grossest is the pool of urine that seems to build underneath each urinal. So standing there, walking to the sinks, leaving the restroom, a trail of urine contributed by an international cast of characters coheres to the bottoms of everyone's shoes. That stew of soles then makes its way to those grey bins that we are asked to place our cell phones, wallets, loose change and shoes.

By the time the bin is x-rayed and comes off the conveyor belt to our anxiously waiting hands, wedding bells have rung and a co-mingling of molecules has been consummated. Yes, we and our collective excrement are the world, literally, figuratively and now biologically as well.

This Blog has always been enamored with small cap biotechnology. There are several in the archives that sport triple digit gains since first mentioned. I know some have not done well, down 50% or more. But the even at 40 cents, NNVC is up 300% from where it was first mentioned here. It was up 3,650% six months later.

i.e. limited downside, unlimited upside

There are more with NNVC potential (NNVC still being one of them) out there. You will probably read about them here first. Meanwhile, remember the observation about those grey bins and think twice about what you place in them, or more importantly, what you pick up out of them

6 comments:

I submit to you this post may be more than it seems and that Allan is having some fun with us. It is probably loaded with metaphors like Don McLean’s “American Pie” song and is a clear reference/ ode to that piece.

In American Pie:

The “Day the Music died” refers to the death of musician Buddy Holly.

“The levee” is McLean’s hometown bar The Beechmont Tavern.

The “flames in the night” described the concert at Altamont, CA given by the Rolling Stones that resulted in some fires and related accidental deaths.

There were many others: birds “flew off for the fallout shelter”, the “court jester”, etc

etc.

In this post:

“Airport Security” refers to the various obstacles one must overcome to become a profitable trader.

The “receptacles (grey bins) in which you put your belongings” refers to trades that you take with real $$.

The “conveyor belt” refers to the temporal forward movement of all financial markets.

The removal of said belongings from the trays constitutes trade exists.

The “mix of urine on the bathroom floor” refers to the plethora of useless trading systems sold by others not related to this site from which you must “cleanse” your shoes (investment dollars) before leaving the bathroom and going out onto the crowded concourse (trading arena/floor).

The “Annoying but harmless?” statement refers to the fact that trading Cramer or other’s picks is/are a recipe for losing $$.

In General:

Don McLean's "American Pie" has remained the subject of intense scrutiny and philosophical interpretation for more than 30 years as music historians, scholars, professors of modern American literature, and his fans alike continue to search for its 'deeper meaning.' In interviews, Don claims to be amused that many interpretations start with the premise that he never talks about the song nor has ever provided insight into the meaning of the lyrics.

I hope we are reading Allan’s “lyrics” here correctly. Or vthat he will provide further insight himself.

I only hope that, as in “American Pie” Allan can be “the Jester” who steals Cramer’s “thorny crown” while he is “looking down.”

Thank you Allan for this piece and ode to Don McLean, who BTW, is said to live quietly on the rocky coast of Maine these days.

as long as Allan brought up Dylan, he is heavily referenced in American Pie:

18. The jester is Bob Dylan. The king could refer to Elvis. The Queen is probably the Queen of England, whom Dylan performed for. In the movie "Rebel Without a Cause", James Dean has a red windbreaker that holds symbolic meaning throughout the film. In one particularly intense scene, Dean lends his coat to a guy who is shot and killed; Dean's father arrives, sees the coat on the dead man, thinks it's Dean, and loses it. On the cover of "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan", Dylan is wearing just such as red windbreaker, and is posed in a street scene similar to one shown in a well-known picture of James Dean. Bob Dylan played a command performance for the Queen and Prince Consort of England. He was not properly attired, so perhaps this is a reference to his apparel.

The mantra here is to find something that works, then trade it. That something is Trend Following using a proprietary version of an Average True Range trend line. You can see it embedded on all of the charts that I post. It’s a simple observational system, if prices are above the trend line then prices are in an uptrend and if prices are below the trend line, prices are in a down trend.

For some, the most challenging part is actually trading the system. That’s where I come in with my observations and analysis. The “music” is my feel for the markets, as I have been doing this for a long time, from my first 5 shares of General Motors circa the mid-1960’s, to my reading of The Elliott Wave Principle in 1982 and through my acquisition of Advanced GET in 1994, the year I gave up my law practice and moved to the beach to trade full time. I have never looked back.

My tools are simple, but powerful. This is the best of the lot and I make it available for a nominal monthly fee. Subscribers not only get my proprietary Trend Following Model, but they get me; access to me for questions and/or learning through private email exchanges. We have found something that works. Now we trade it.

Profile

Originally from Detroit, Michigan, I attended Mumford H.S. the University of Michigan (BA), Suffolk Law School in Boston (JD) and Emory Law in Atlanta (LLM-Taxation ). Thus, with way too much formal education, I opened up my own law practice in Atlanta and closed it down 15 years later, whereupon I moved to the beach, Kiawah Island SC, to trade for a living. I made a fortune in the great bull market of the nineties, than lost 80% of it back in the great bear market of 2000-2002.

The stock market crisis of 2007-2008 led me down yet another path, this time through the discovery of simple trend following algorithms. Not long after reading Trend Following by Michael Covel, a reader sent me a link to an article in TASC that in turn led me to an algorithm that turned all that I had ever learned about trading on its head. The outcome is represented in my proprietary Trend Following Trading Models and the evolution of how and why is documented posts starting in late 2009.

As for the personal stuff, the music, the poetry and the joys and angst of living the good life, well, my spirit tells it all in the words, images and ideas that come together through the aegis that is, AllAlan.blogspot.com

A note about the AllanTrends web site: Most commercial sites have pop-up windows appear when you click on them. The idea is to capture your email and begin a never-ending email campaign to sell you their product or service. The worse ones collect emails and sell them to email lists marketing companies.

THERE IS NO SUCH POP-UP WINDOW ON MY SITE. ANYONE CAN EXPLORE THE SITE FREELY AND ANONYMOUSLY. I EVEN MAINTAIN A FREE PUBLIC CHARTS SECTION THAT IS UPDATED EVERY WEEKEND WITH CURRENT CHARTS OF SPECIAL INTEREST.